Tell Your Story

Author: huiliublog

Volunteer is an important social group in developing countries. More and more people prefer to do some voluntary work for no financial gain and many different types of voluntary organizations have been developing fast.

With the experience of doing voluntary work in Sydney, I found international students seem to volunteer more than local students. To know more about the truth of this situation, I made several interviews on people who in charge of an voluntary organization in Bankstown and two volunteers who work there

Karina Yewdall, who is in charge of MS organization in Bankstown, works on voluntary for many years. At the beginning of the voluntary activities, Karina always tell volunteers some main points should be pay attention to and give some guidance on practice, such as, how to communicate with and how to serve the patients.

She talked a lot about the reasons and meaning of doing voluntary work. She said, “Members in our organization do some works for community without any payments. It’s our responsibility to help others and give kindness back to this society.”

After this week’s work, she told us the achievements of last project.

“Thank you for your support during our Wrapping project. We have raised totally $37817.25 from Bankstown, Chatswood and Strathfield. Your generous time and hard work will enable people, who suffer from multiple sclerosis, get help from an occupational therapist and help bring back some normalcy to them.”

I have joined this project before. We volunteers wrapped gifts for people in supermarkets and made donations for people suffer from MS. The wrapping was free for people, but they always give some money into our donation box. It was exciting to check the box at the end of activities because we tried our best to raise the money to help people in needs.

After that, I found a chance to talk to her about the doubt if international students volunteer more than local students.

“During my 3-months experience of volunteering in Sydney, I saw more international students do voluntary work than local students. How do u think about this situation?”

“It’s hard to say this is true or not because every voluntary organization has different kind of works, and has different requirements for volunteers. Some of them would prefer to use local students because they need local cultural background. Some of them want to create an international environment for some projects, so they prefer international students.”

She also said that, “Actually, we don’t have to pay too much attention to this problem. Even though there are some statistics about volunteering, we focus on the number of participants and the time of the volunteering.”

According to the data researched by the National Volunteering Strategy, the growth in volunteering is obvious. It seems a good trend that more people would like to join in the voluntary work. However, from 1995 to 2006, the number of adult volunteers and rate of volunteering have increased while the median hours per person per year has been decreasing a lot. For this situation, I made interviews on two volunteers working with me.

“I’m a international student and just been here for several months. I want to try my best to do something to help others. About this problem, I think it probably because people don’t have enough time to do voluntary work. Just like me, I can’t too much time here because I have a great stress of studying and just come here occasionally.” Said by Jacky Lee.

Another local student Amber Yewdall said that, “I have been working here for 2 years. There are more new people volunteering here but they can’t keep doing it. Most of them prefer to try voluntary work, and they just do temporary work. Less of them can volunteer for a long time.”

I started this interview with the purpose of knowing more about the facts, that if international students do more voluntary work than local students. But now, it is more meaningful to care more about the volunteering. No matter how much time people would like to spend on voluntary work and no matter if international students are more or not, it is a good beginning for everyone to volunteer in different organizations and it’s a good trend that more people to join in volunteering to help others.

According to the data researched by the National Volunteering Strategy, growth in volunteering is obvious. More people are volunteering but for less time than in the past. The number of adult volunteers almost doubled from 3.2 million in 1995 to 6.1 million in 2010. It seems a good trend that more people would like to join in the voluntary work.

However, with the experience of voluntary work, I found, during the volunteers, the quantity of international students is more than local students, which seems to be a little strange and unbelievable. I want to search for more evidence about this to make sure whether the situation is generally true or not but there are less report and information about the doubt. It will be an effective way to go to some voluntary institution to ask for related voluntary records about volunteers.

My feature news article aims to explore whether international students volunteer more than local students. Besides, I will discover the reasons why international do voluntary work and to find out the meaning of volunteering.

I’m going to start my news article by sharing the experience that I did voluntary work for MS organization and the feeling I got during the work. And I plan to make several interviews on 2 international students and 2 local students about their attitudes and their experience on volunteering. Considering clarify the truth that in recent years whether international students do more voluntary work than local students, I need to have an interview on the person who work for voluntary organization to collect more exact information.

It may be no use just focusing the truth. I want to present more potential stories and meanings behind volunteer. The purpose of news article is not just to make sure on the doubt that I put forward before but to attract public attention to show more cares about vulnerable groups and attract more people to try their best to help others.

Even though the data or statistics I explore from individual voluntary organizations cannot prove the whole situation but it still could reflect some reality. I plan to ask international students, why they would like to do such voluntary work in the country which is not their motherland, is there any difficulties during the work and I find more international students do voluntary work than locals, do you have the same feeling. When facing local students, I will ask them the times or period they provide on voluntary work, the reason they do this work, and the reason you think people don’t want to do voluntary work.